


Advent 25 (b)

by darksquall, lanapanda



Series: Science Boys Advent 2012 [2]
Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Oh Tony, Sweetness, advent calendar fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-20 02:47:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/580436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darksquall/pseuds/darksquall, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanapanda/pseuds/lanapanda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Part of an Advent series in collaboration with darksquall. Read Advent 25 (a) first! http://archiveofourown.org/works/579389) Tony Stark has been a little out of sorts lately, but he has a very good reason. Bruce's silent worrying means Tony has to take action sooner, rather than later. Things finally come to a head on the 1st of December.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Advent 25 (b)

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The characters and places contained herein do not belong to me and I am making no money from this.
> 
> With much thanks to darksquall for indulging my holiday fluff whims.

Bruce was starting to suspect something, Tony was sure of it.  
  
What was worse, in Tony’s estimation, was that whatever Bruce suspected, it was making him unhappy. Tony couldn’t help worrying that maybe Bruce knew exactly why Tony was spending all those long nights in the lab, and what was behind all the secretive phone calls and just didn’t want what Tony was planning to do.The trouble was, Tony couldn’t ask if Bruce wanted what he was offering... without actually offering it. In Tony’s estimation, that required planning everything perfectly.  
  
Unfortunately, planning was never Tony’s strong suit on the best of days. He’d gone through a dozen different ways to ask, thrown out five of them as cliche, three of them as illegal, another two as scientifically impossible (he’d checked the math just to be sure), and one as being potentially offensive before he had finally hit on a way to ask that he thought _might_ be good enough. Not perfect. Nothing could be perfect when it came to this, but Tony thought he’d gotten pretty close.  
  
At least, it had been close until Tony started screwing it up from the very beginning. He was 15 minutes late getting to work because of the testing that had to be done before he asked and some of the test cases were just the tiniest bit... explosive. So he’d needed to comb his hair again. And take a shower. And get a different suit. Thankfully, it was raining out and Bruce would likely think he’d gotten distracted by that, and not by cleaning up a prototype while the actual piece was fabricated in the lab. Tony carried the actual piece with him in fact, tucked warmly into one pocket.  
  
On the way up to Bruce’s private office, he went over the little speech he’d practiced no less than 97 times in his head over the past few weeks. Tony had the entire scenario choreographed in his head. He would be charming, but not over the top. Persuasive, but not demanding. It would be the perfect day -- just a little rainy, full of science. Bruce would be happy, and Tony would ask and everything would be as close to perfect as he could make it.  
  
Tony stepped into Bruce’s office and...  
  
As soon as they were face to face, every word he’d rehearsed fled Tony’s mind. His mouth went dry. Instead of striking up a conversation with the perfect opening line, Tony found himself sitting on the corner of Bruce’s desk, grinning to cover the fact that his eloquent, yet completely casual set-up for the day was gone.  
  
“Feel up to skipping work and going out?” was the best he could do.  
  
“Sure,” Bruce replied, and Tony noted with no small measure of relief that Bruce was smiling at him and didn’t seem annoyed at putting down whatever paperwork had held his attention only moments before. But then came the question that Tony should have expected, given Bruce’s natural scientific curiosity. “Are we going anywhere in particular?”  
  
“Um... yeah,” Tony answered and looked around to try to think of a passable cover for the fact that he was taking Bruce to a very specific spot, via a highly circuitous route that would give the workmen a chance to get the hell out of dodge by lunch time. “Yeah we are. A few particular places.” He could frame it as a surprise. Bruce liked (pleasant) surprises. This would be pleasant. He hoped.  
  
“Do I get to know?” Bruce asked and Tony dared to look at him again. Crap. Now Bruce looked ‘concerned’ which meant that Bruce was actually approaching worried.  
  
Tony didn’t want him to be worried. He’d spent the last three weeks dodging that worried look in between late nights at the lab and calls to contractors. Today he wanted no part of it.  
  
“Just... places. You’ll like it,” Tony held out his hand and when Bruce took it, Tony tugged him close for a kiss. In that moment, Tony’s nervousness faded back in favor of the warmth and sweetness of having Bruce in his arms and against his lips. Nothing had changed there -- Bruce’s kisses were still a delicious enticement to spending an entire day just trading them back and forth.  
  
Bruce’s little ‘mmm’ of contentment when they finally came up for air made Tony wish he’d just kept them both in bed until noon. He was halfway to changing his plans and taking Bruce back to bed for the rest of the morning when Bruce’s gentle “okay” reminded Tony that he was on something of a timetable.  
  
And while one would think that running late in this instance would make things easier -- less time to fill before the workmen would be gone -- in reality it made things something of a blur. Tony barely remembered what they toured in the museum. At the aquarium, they’d gone to look at the octopi and squid because Bruce was fond of cephalopods. By the time they were done there, the rain was letting up and Tony just managed to get them to the park in time for a walk, a chance to be companionably close in the chill December air that was still warm for this time of year -- ordinarily, they’d have been walking in the snow.    
  
All too soon, it was time to go to the office building. Tony felt the nervousness seeping back, the closer they got to the newly rebuilt areas of the city. Looking at it now, it was hard to believe that the entire place had been covered in rubble and alien corpses a year and a half ago. Back then, the building they were standing in front of had been partially destroyed as well.  
  
Ordinarily, it might have been abandoned, or torn down and had something new built in its place. Tony had bought it the day after the Chitauri “incident” as soon as he was able to process and understand what had happened in the blank space of time between the nuke exploding and his waking up on the ground, staring up at his teammates without the benefit of a faceplate on the suit.  
  
At the time, Tony’d had no idea what he would do with it. But then Bruce had agreed to stay, and they’d gotten closer, and... well. Tony didn’t believe in God. But he did believe in Fate. He and Bruce had both survived, despite the tremendous odds against them, for a reason. Tony wanted to believe that the reasons and Fate had intersected at this point, eighteen months ago, and then started moving forward in parallel. It was a good working theory, anyway.  
  
He’d been so lost in thought that it took him a moment to realize that Bruce was similarly distracted. That distant look in Bruce’s eyes made Tony wonder just how much of that battle the big guy had shared. He prodded Bruce on the shoulder and smiled, offering his hand. “Hey. Come upstairs with me?”  
  
Bruce gave Tony his hand. The same hand that had once felt the weight of a gun and judged it lighter than the weight on his soul. The same hand that had been against Tony’s cheek the night after Chitauri and Shwarma and pronounced him concussed. The same hand that had passed him tools in the lab, fingertips lingering against Tony’s for that half a heartbeat longer as their gazes met. The same hand that tangled in Tony’s hair when they kissed, or clutched at his hip in the midst of their lovemaking. The same hand that Tony wanted to hold his, just like this, now and always.   
  
“Sure. Where are we?”  
  
“An office building I bought. Wasn't sure what I was going to do with it at first, but... had some ideas over the last few months. Come up and see.”  
  
Tony had hoped Bruce would be excited about seeing some of his pet projects with their own lab setup, so that they could run test cases without having to compete for resources over at the business side of things. And maybe happy to have private lecture halls for small groups, so he could avoid the crowds when he gave the occasional talk.    
  
Instead, with each new lab, Bruce seemed more solemn and Tony wondered if maybe Bruce was unhappy that he’d paid so much attention to what Bruce was working on. Maybe he was getting too personal, too close, and Bruce just didn’t know how to tell him...  
  
But then, Tony went through one of the labs he’d set up for his own work, and Bruce was smiling again, squeezing his hand and looking as happy as he’d ever been with any of their shared projects. Tony decided Bruce must have been worried about Tony spending too much money on him again. A ridiculous notion, really, since there wasn’t enough money in the world for Tony to spoil Bruce the way he really wanted to and the way that Bruce definitely deserved.  
  
He rounded out the tour in the middle of the building almost. There was an atrium that ran along the bottom 10 floors of the building, and in the center of the atrium itself there was a garden... but above that was another private garden, set near the lecture halls but designed in such a way that they were secluded away, a spot to rest with the sound of water and soothing plant life.    
Truth be told, it was an odd place to stop, but then, this wasn’t the typical tour anyway. It had all built up to this moment: the museum, the aquarium, the walk in the park, and even looking over the rest of the building... it was all for this. Tony led Bruce around to a quiet spot by the window, still holding his hand.  
  
“So, what do you think?”  
  
“Are you making us an escape?”  Bruce asked with a smile, and Tony couldn’t help smiling back, even as the little flickers of panic over what he was about to ask made themselves known.  
  
It was a private place for them to work, yes. Potentially wonderful, if this went well. If it didn’t, and Bruce didn’t leave... well, it was hopefully a chance for him to reconcile. If Bruce left... well, Tony wasn’t sure what he’d do, and he pushed the thought away as best he could.  
  
“In a way. I... um...” Tony shook his head and grinned to cover the internal wince at stumbling over his words. Maybe he’d do better if he could show Bruce exactly what building this was, and why it was so important to him. With Bruce’s hand still in his, Tony led him over to the window and then let go to gesture towards the windowsill. “I know you won’t remember this but that’s okay, because I don’t remember this either actually.”  
  
No, he didn’t remember. But he had seen some of the news footage, and had ran the data points from the suit’s ‘little black box’. Zero power, auxiliary systems offline, accelerating from force of the nuclear detonation... Tony knew he’d been as good as dead until the Hulk caught him. Right here, at this very window where he now stood with the man he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.  
  
Tony had even managed to save the original masonry with the handprint, and had reconstructed the building around that masonry, putting in as much of the original structure as he could, so that the marks went down and away along the side of the building, following the path the Hulk had taken when he saved Tony’s life.  
  
He watched Bruce stare at the handprint, realization dawning. “Oh, this is... Right...” Tony had been a little worried that Bruce wouldn’t want to be reminded of it, and he knew that Bruce didn’t like big showy displays. So there was no plaque, no statue... just the mark in the masonry to tell the story on its own.  
  
Tony slid a hand into Bruce’s curly hair, as much for the enjoyment of it as to pull them both out of their musings and into the moment. His free hand ghosted over Bruce’s cheek and then underneath his chin -- an easy way to get Bruce to look at him, and to have his head tipped just right for a kiss. Tony let the warmth of that kiss and the affection he felt from Bruce keep the doubts at bay. “Yeah. I thought... well... There’s something I want to ask you and this is part of it.”  
  
“Ask away,” Bruce said with a smile.  
  
Oh god, I’m really going to do this, Tony thought to himself as Bruce took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. It was almost like Bruce knew what was coming. Maybe he did. Maybe this was his way of saying he wanted it, after all. Giving Tony the encouragement to go through with it.  
  
Or maybe he just enjoyed holding hands and had no real idea at all.  
  
Tony made himself stop speculating. He silenced the voices in his head with a deep breath, then closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. The weight of the box in his pocket was suddenly that much more noticeable to him, but that was alright too. Better than alright, really -- it was tangible proof that he was willing to take action to make this happen.  
  
And he really was going to do this.  
  
Tony opened his eyes and ran his thumb over Bruce’s knuckles. "We've been... really great. Together. Done a lot of good work, had a lot of amazing fun and I just... don’t want that to end. Ever. So I was hoping... I mean... I wanted to ask if maybe... you’d... stay with me. Forever."  
  
It wasn’t the speech he’d rehearsed. It was halting and confusing and quite frankly a mess, but Tony meant every word and Bruce seemed to be alright -- still smiling, not pulling away.  
  
"I've never had this much fun with anyone. I wasn't about to run out on...you..." Bruce began, and then he just stared as Tony got down on one knee.  
  
Tony was amazed by how much easier it was to say the words once he he’d knelt. It was like all the certainty he needed was in this perspective: looking up into Bruce’s eyes and seeing the surprise there when he saw the ring box as Tony took it out of his pocket. ”I know you weren't, Bruce. But I want... I want you to be mine, and with me. I want you to marry me. I can’t promise to be perfect but I do promise to always love you, and to do my best to be the husband you deserve.”  
  
Time seemed to slow down at that point. Tony braced up in case there was a frown, or worse, laughter. Neither was forthcoming. Tony stayed right where he was, holding both of Bruce’s hands in one of his, and offering up the ring box that held the ring he’d spent every spare moment of the past three weeks getting absolutely perfect. Bruce wasn’t even looking at the ring. He was looking at Tony.  
  
Finally, Bruce nodded. Tony remembered how to breathe again.  
  
"Yes, I want you, Tony."  
  
As if on cue, the rain started up again and Tony tugged Bruce into his arms to kiss his fiancé. He was still holding the ring box, but it was far less important now. Everything he really wanted -- Bruce, right there, in his arms and kissing him with that perfect sweet possessiveness -- he had.  
  
"I've always thought that you were perfect," Bruce whispered when they both finally came up for air.  
  
Tony gently let go of Bruce and was rewarded by Bruce wrapping both arms around him, holding onto him like he never wanted to let go. Tony blinked a few times, and tangled one hand into Bruce’s hair with a grin. "Just like you've been perfect," Tony said, and he leaned into that embrace. "I am... so amazingly happy right now. Just.. wow."  
  
There was the laugh. Not the mocking one he’d feared, but a genuinely pleased and quiet little laugh that was all Bruce. He didn’t actually take the ring box. Instead he held Tony’s hand as Tony held it, and tipped Tony’s hand this way and that to look at the workmanship. Tony noted the surprised little smile when Bruce realized the ring was not from a jewelry store and suddenly... everything was perfect.  
  
Which was why Tony was taken completely off-guard when Bruce let go of his hand and leaned closer to pinch his ass. It made for a surprised little ‘ack!!’ that seemed to please Bruce very much indeed.  "So this is where you've been sneaking off to?"  
  
Tony laughed, and decided that being pinched on the ass after having his proposal accepted definitely fit within the parameters of perfect. "Guilty as charged. I wanted to be sure it'd work. I'm marrying you, not the big guy, but I didn't want him to accidentally break your wedding ring when he shows up."  
  
Bruce kissed Tony at the corner of his mouth. It was one of those little affections that Tony loved so much and Tony closed his eyes happily, just reveling in it.  
  
“When?”  
  
The question made Tony smile. Having gotten a yes on the ‘what’ he was more than happy to offer his ideas on the ‘when’. “Mmm. I was thinking... small, private ceremony. Say... on Christmas?”  
  
"Just us and close friends?"  
  
"Yeah. It'll give the villains less opportunity to crash the real wedding. We can do the big official announcement whenever you want, though." Tony figured that a big announcement would keep the press away from them during the actual ceremony.  
  
Bruce tipped his head and looked at Tony with a wry smile. “... you mean this Christmas, don’t you?”  
  
“Unless you know a reason why we should wait,” Tony beamed at him. It was just a wedding. A couple of suits, a dinner, someone to marry them and some guests -- simple.  
  
"Oh we're going to be busy for the next few weeks,” Bruce said, and Tony thought he detected an edge of amusement in his fiancé’s voice.  
  
"Busy? We can create prototypes in two weeks. A wedding should be easy."  
  
"Can't fab a wedding venue, official, decorations, guests, food and the rest though," Bruce shook his head and Tony had to wonder if maybe Bruce was envisioning something far more complex than a simple wedding with friends. Either way, Tony was just too happy to care.  
  
“But that’s stuff we can decide over a nice movie,” Tony replied. And they could. Tomorrow night, after work, they could curl up together and get the entire wedding planned and ready.  
  
Bruce stole another kiss before he finally stood up, and tugged Tony to his feet as well. "Up. We have a lot of work to do."  
  
"Mm, when do we not? It'll be fun." Tony grinned and put the ring box away. He would fab a matching ring for himself tonight, now that he knew for a fact that he’d be needing one.  
  
"I will remind you that you said that before the wedding, I'm sure," Bruce grinned right back at him, and it made Tony’s heart skip a beat when Bruce held his hand just that little bit tighter.  
  
This was it. This was what he wanted for the rest of his life. Bruce’s hand in his.  
  
“Remind me all you want. Because it’ll also remind me that you said yes, and I’d go through anything for that. For you."

 


End file.
